Category Archives: Quick Posts & Updates

As you know, I started this blog back in 2012 when I became engaged to my now husband Toon, and later enraged by the relative lack of diversity within mainstream wedding media. I intended to utilise Invisible Bride (alongside my existing blog, Rants and Raves) as a platform to promote mainly online spaces that catered to same-gender loving, older, bigger, non-white, disabled, etc.. individuals and couples planning to tie the knot or jump the broom. I feel that I was able to do that to some extent and while my posts on Invisible Bride have become fewer and farther between in recent months, I still feel there is a lot more to be done! This is why I will from now on, integrate the Invisible Bride project into my more general blog (accessible here). Obviously, now that I am no longer planning my own wedding I don’t have any new anecdotes to share with regard to finding a non-traditional dress or a non-racist baker. All the same, this is a very important counter-narrative, so as I come across new and interesting resources and/or inspiring stories, I will share them, just from my Rants and Raves blog instead. This blog will remain online so that you can still access and share older posts, however for news and updates, you can sign up to follow my other blog space here.

Thank you all so much for your support and encouragement. I hope it will be continued and carried over onto Rants and Raves. If you’re still planning, I wish you all the very best and if you are already in wedded bliss congrats! Stay in touch 🙂 ❤

A friend of mine from my old media literacy reading group passed this on to me the other day. When I saw what it was, it was one of the moments when you make a discovery and feel like “I should have done that” however I’ll promote it anyway.

“Offering a critique of contemporary wedding discourse, this book marries together analyses of media texts and their reception to propose a new approach to media discourse. The analysis richly illustrates how women are invited to embrace not only the stereotypical idea of bridal femininity but also a consumptive way of experiencing it.”

So if you’ve enjoyed reading this blog as well as other critiques of the mainstream wedding industry, this could be a really nice addition to your book shelf. Also available as an eBook for those of you conscious about the environment. Enjoy!

Brides-to-be of colour behold! The potential for flesh-matching wedding lingerie and hosiery!!!

Nubian Skin is exposing us to a brand new world where our hues will no longer be excluded from the fashion phrase “nude coloured (under) garments”.

This is very exciting and ground-breaking news, especially if that special day outfit will require you to wear lingerie and/or hosiery that matched your skin tone as closely as possible. Of course, you don’t need to wait for your wedding day or even be planning to get married to enjoy this long-awaited and well overdue alternative to white and beige underwear. And it isn’t to say that we couldn’t find brown and bronze bras, panties and stockings before – just that it is exciting to see another visible platform that targets women of colour specifically rather than as mere tokens to broaden an overly Eurocentric demographic. That’s worth celebration and acknowledgement.

Their web-shop will be available (and hopefully affordable) to the public very soon, so sign up for regular updated on their website to keep informed.

It’s “throw-back-Thursday” as in a week’s time, we’ll be almost married! So I wanted to share two pictures of us as kids now that I’m finally beginning to get a little giddy and excited about our special day.

Below you can see me at age 4, dressed up (by my mother and some other female relatives I presume) in my aunt’s meringue wedding dress. Don’t you just love those totally 80s curtains?! Amazingly, despite also being a bridesmaid at this event, as well as such early exposure to social ideals of femininity through Disney and the like, I’ve completely shied away from the typical “princess” notion of an over-sized white gown complete with veil and professional make-up.

I’ve struggled to find any pictures of my fiancé dressed up as a child, having said that, I prefer this natural picture of him to the idea that he may have ever been dressed up in a cute, boy-suit. His family was far more “outside-action” than mine and so most of the pictures of him as a child have him engaged in some sort of fun in a field, in the garden or playing a sport. This is him at his absolute cutest (almost like a little cupid!), about age three, already trying out archery!

Ladies! The April / May 2014 edition ofBlack Hair UK Magazineis a bridal special! In short – go out and get it while it’s still in stores!!!

There are all kinds of hot hair tips for brides-of-colour to be throughout the edition, but some of the highlights are arguably the ideas offered for ladies who may wish to go natural on their big day (see pages 49 and 68-71), as well as fashion advice if you are going for something a little different than the usual princess look (see pages 120-123). As always, there is also plenty of make-up and beauty hints for those of us with darker skin hues (see pages 103-105), which is a much needed departure from the standard fashion and beauty magazine advice column, which tends to only acknowledge olive skinned, Latin beauties as their dark-skinned audience, thus not offering any guidance to a black readership. In any case, this it is wonderful to see this long-standing magazine reaching out to brides to be with a variety of pointers for how to achieve the classic / conventional bridal look, in addition to numerous alternative and yet gorgeous styles.

My personal favourite segment of this edition of Black Hair has to be the “Fairytale bride” – which turns Disney’s interpretations of beauty on its head once and for all, along with all notions of what a “real” bride should look like (see pages 110-113).

Of course, it’s a bit girly, girly – but in my opinion, as long as we have numerous, balanced versions of what being “girly” means, it’s all good.